I'm the Co-founder and CEO of The Grommet. We launch undiscovered consumer products. It's also the birthplace of Citizen Commerce. I write about design, cultural anthropology, and start-ups, mostly.

“Makers Who Made It” is out!

After relaying just a snippet of their twisted and exciting journeys, virtually every entrepreneur has been told, “You should write a book about that!” And if that roller coaster ride is true for creating a software app, or a consulting business, imagine building a company which manufactures a real-live product. That extreme path accelerates the already hairy startup drama by several notches.

Why? Partly because physical products have their own laws. They are the laws of physics. Long awaited containers arrive full of products made in the wrong material, or heartbreakingly damaged. They get stuck in customs while orders go frustratingly unfilled. The factory makes the product just slightly off of spec, but enough to make it worthless. Complex assemblies don’t hold up. The product’s green is green, but not the right shade of green.

The journey to get a physical product launched and scaled is pocked with opportunities for sleepless nights at every turn.

These Maker businesses also have their own joys: the deep human satisfaction of seeing your own concept now rendered in full 3-D glory, made of real molecules you can touch and use. Maker companies are companies other people can relate to, or even aspire to emulate.

Last summer The Grommet released the world’s first infographic on the Maker Movement. Over the course of a few months we experienced steady demand for this information—it was viewed over 10,000 times. Meanwhile, working with over 2,000 Makers we realized that there was an opportunity to help them write their book. The one they would write if they could just stop packing boxes or evaluating 3-d printed prototypes.

I’m delighted to announce that today we are releasing “Makers Who Made It.” It’s an e-book that captures the stories of 100 of the Makers who inspired and enabled the Grommet community. These creative, hard working Makers don’t hold back on telling the truth–because it is hard-earned knowledge of which they are proud.

It’s a privilege to share the book and to anticipate the journey this information will take to enable the next generation of Makers to thrive.

Download it here. It’s full of videos so I recommend grabbing the E-pub rather than the PDF–the E-pub has easier navigation too. The book will shortly be available on all the usual e-book platforms like Kobo and Kindle but I want to share it here first!